Shigeru - Safety officer working at the coal mine and a very resourceful fellow. I don't imagine he likes omelettes anymore.

Kiyo - Engaged to Shigeru, I want to know what sort of laundry detergent she uses to keep that kimono so clean and bright.

Dr. Kashiwagi - Expert on prehistoric reptiles.

Gorro - Brother to Kiyo and known for his short temper, he is killed by a cave-in.

The Japanese Military - Ineffective as ever. (Sneaking up on people on a Sunday doesn't count.)

The Meganurons - Huge prehistoric insects. Here would be a valid reason for the Orkin man to wear power armor, a flamethrower and rocket launcher wouldn't hurt either.

Rodan and Rodanette - A mated pair of enormous Pterosauria that can fly at supersonic speeds. The species became extinct due to an unfortunate natural habit of nesting in active volcanoes. That would include both of these.

The Plot:

Stock nuclear bomb test footage starts us off, with the narrator dryly intoning about the massive blows mankind is dealing to our planet. It's filler really, just to give the movie a running time of over eighty minutes. Not entirely without merits as filler though, for our narrator friend warns about the blasts cracking the crust and doing irreparable damage. We may cause ourselves and the biosphere some grief, but rest assured that the Earth could care less about nuclear weapons.

With that out of the way you should buckle your seat belt, because this movie takes off like a race car and never slows down. In the mining town of Kitamatsu, on the island of Kyushu, the safety engineers are worried about a problem known as "creeping floor." Evidently caused when support (in this case a coal vein) between strata is removed, it worries the mine managers. Their concern turns out to be well founded, for a partial collapse occurs and a section of the tunnel is flooded. When a rescue team arrives they find the body of a man Gorro argued with; since the latter is missing somewhere inside the mine they decide he has become a homicidal maniac.

Authorities always choose the easy answers, don't they? The real problem is a vicious species of giant insect, released into the mine when the tunnel connected with an ancient cavern. I wanted to say voracious vice vicious, but the bugs refuse to eat anyone. Maybe they are herbivores, subsisting on cave fungus, that evolution equipped with a nasty temper and sharp claws.

The police insist on searching for Gorro and I'm all for that. One of the movie's chilling scenes (to a much younger version of myself) was watching two men pulled underwater by an unseen terror, while a third frantically saws the rope from his own waist. When the bugs finally arrive they are obviously cumbersome contraptions built much like the Chinese Dragons used in street fairs, only much heavier. Pay no attention to the man's legs under that arthropod of death!

Shigeru accompanies soldiers into the mines to hunt for bugs and even saves the day with quick thinking when machine guns prove ineffective. What sort of insect shrugs off .30 caliber bullets like they were stones anyway? The weakened tunnels respond to the ruckus by collapsing, trapping our hero in the prehistoric warrens.

Earthquakes rock the mountains near Kitamatsu and a huge area sinks into the Earth. Shigeru is found wandering in the newly created depression in a state of shock, he is also suffering from amnesia. Concurrent with these events, a strange UFO begins appearing and causing random acts of destruction. When pursued it proves able to maneuver better and accelerate faster than any fighter aircraft, plus it has a bad tendency of destroying the chase plane.

Just in case you didn't notice, the movie shifted gears and the giant bugs are nowhere in sight (for a good reason). Two enormous eggs hatched in that underground cavern, it was seeing the creatures awakening and eating the Meganurons that drove Shigeru almost insane. His darling fiancee' is kind enough to jog those memories loose by showing him her songbird's eggs, right as they begin to hatch. She also probably dragged him to see the Japanese premiere of "Cool Hand Luke" years later, rendering him comatose for the rest of his life. George Kennedy claims another innocent soul...

Pacing can make or break a movie and I love the speed here. The title monsters may show up in force for only one scene, but they have a solid part. There is not a whole lot to do with a rubber chicken on wires anyway. Rodans do not appear to require wing movement once they get off the ground and it probably caused some scientists to have nervous breakdowns figuring out how a one hundred ton creature could fly in the first place. They should have payed better attention, because one of the things used a little too often is the same footage; shots pop up a couple of times that caused me serious déjà vu.

Darwin would pull his hair in frustration upon seeing the nesting site the monsters pick, but in the end the Rodans are done in by their love for each other. Isn't that the way it always happens? Wait millions of years to be together and a volcano roasts the girl of your dreams, somebody should write a country western song about it.

Things I Learned From This Movie:

There is one thing more comforting than a mother's womb: seeing the names "Honda" and "Ifukube" in the credits of a Japanese monster movie.

Being tied to someone who is being eaten by a monster is "not good."

Sleeping on rubble is bad for your back.

It is possible to cast shadows against the sky.

Military command bunkers are located underground or in hardened buildings for a very practical reason.

Shooting at an active volcano with heavy artillery is not the brightest thing in the world.

Swans are descended from Rodan.

Stuff To Watch For:

9 mins - You don't want to see him lady, go and reserve a closed casket funeral.

17 mins - I've been thinking, these people are remarkably clean for working in a coal mine.

27 mins - Obviously the song "Unforgettable" was not written about Kiyo.

36 mins - Why did the claw show up in the photograph when it was not on the negative?

39 mins - There! Right there is when his mind snapped.

44 mins - Unless you knew what part of the egg that came from and its usual shape this test would never work.

50 mins - RANDOM ACT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST A VOLCANO!

83 mins - And I complained about all the leftover turkey we had from Thanksgiving...

Shigeru: "Yoshi was dead when they carried him from the mine, but he didn't die from drowning. He had been killed, more than killed, he had been slaughtered like an animal. Even in death there was a look of horror on his face, as if in those last moments he had seen something dreadful and terrible beyond words."

I first saw Rodan in 1957 as an eight year old in St.Louis,Missouri. I think most people underestimate the influence and impact this movie had on kids at that time. This was the biggest movie event of my childhood and for good reason. There was a barage of tv commercials for the movie that got all of us kids in a frenzy. Rodan opened exclusively at the huge Fox theatre in St.Louis and the St.Louis Post-Dispatch featured full page ads for the movie for the first week of its release. These went down to half page ads the second week. You don't see movie ads this size in today's papers. Rodan stayed at the Fox for 10 or 12 weeks before being distributed to the local neighborhood shows which is where I finally got to view it. I went with my father and younger brother Chris to see it at the local Rio show(now a vacant lot on Riverview Boulevard) which was located in the middle of the block in a neighborhood named Walnut Park. There were two massive lines to get in the show(one to the left and one to the right) both of which extended around the corner of the city block. I have never before or since seen such a crowd at a movie house. We waited almost 45 minutes to get into the small show and the movie had already begun so we had to stay for a second show to see what we had missed. My Dad had to stand in the aisle as there were not enough seats. He is not a patient man and not a monster fan and I still can't believe he suffered through this ordeal! Rodan was not just a movie it was a major event in childhood. I still love the movie and watch it at least once a year. Incidently, the movie came to television in St.Louis in the 1960's and was shown on a local station,KPLR 11, at 7:00 p.m. Monday through Friday for five consecutive nights in a row and got big ratings. (Yes,I watched it every night!)

This is a very good movie. I dont know if I would consider it a B-movie (just an old movie), and I would not consider it a bad movie. It has a suprisingly thought out plot, and good characters. Entertaining.

This is Toho's hidden gem in my opinion. Few of the giant monster movies are actually cinimatic gems, the original Godzilla for example. Even if you don't care for monster mayhem, do yourself a favor and watch this. By the way, get off your butt Andrew, and give us a review for the original '54 'Zilla! (please!!!)

I remember first seeing a preview for this movie at the end of an old VHS copy for the original Godzilla put out, I believe, by Vestron. As I recall it was a little too heavy on clips from the Rodans' attack on Sasebo, as well as the scene where Shigeru sees the first Rodan hatch from its egg in the cavern. Looking back, I'm surprised that seeing these scenes before I actually saw the movie didn't ruin it for me, and I'm sure it would have had it not been for the Meganurons. There was nothing about them in the preview for the film - it was like they were Vestron's trump card. I find it silly now, but watching the film back then for the first time I was initially convinced it was Rodan doing the killings in the mines. I guess I figured he was a baby at the time or something. Imagine how delighted I was when the first Meganuron waddled its merry way into Kyo's house to menace her and Shigeru. And I, too, got nightmares from the scene where an unseen Meganuron pulls the miner and the policeman down into the water, while the third man frantically tries to free himself.

Suffice to say my favorite part of the movie is the first half revolving around the antics of the Meganurons in the mines. But the Rodans are the main focus after all, and I think they're pretty cool as well. I love the scene where the first one stubbornly evades a pursuing pilot before finally making a major U-turn and kacking him. That they can generate typhoon-force winds by flapping their wings was also a very nifty ability, and their distinctive cry (which sounds a little like a looped bobcat growl) is very chilling.

This is easily my favorite non-Godzilla Toho kaiju film, with its astounding miniature work and overall creepy atmosphere. I recently got it on DVD (along with the original Godzilla) for only five bucks. What a bargain!

kooshmeister, I have the vestron video print of rodan and it has the preview for the first godzilla movie from vestron and I used to rent the vestron godzilla and it had a preview for rodan.cool.go to rarevideo.com and find out how much its worth.it really is 125 bucks.

I noticed how all the japaneese in it have american cars and jeeps as well as F-86 jets wow what a concept and as for supersonic pteridacktyles well i say wow how fast can they go? and remember when he recalled the egg hatching while watching the birds egg hatching and RODAN Jr is born

The movie Rodan is one of my favorite movies in my collection! I can watch it again and again! The love story of the Rodans is very touching at the end! I cried when I first watched the ending! At least one survived!